As vehicles have gradually used lots of electrical components and eco-friendly vehicles such as an electric vehicle (EV), a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) have been increasingly used, the number of electric components applied to vehicles has increased.
A power module for driving such an electric component includes an insulated gate bipolar mode transistor (IGBT) device and a diode and, in this regard, the power module is seriously heated due to high integration and microminiaturization and, thus, a cooling device needs to be installed therewith to enhance performance of the power module.
The IGBT of the power module is a device for switching control of a driving motor of an eco-friendly vehicle and, along with the development of eco-friendly vehicles, cooling performance requirement is also enhanced.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-245478 (“Inverter Cooling Device”, Sep. 7, 2001) discloses an inverter that uses a semiconductor module including a semiconductor device such as an IGBT and a diode, installed therein and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-294283 (“Semiconductor Device”, Dec. 4, 2008) discloses a heat sink installed to contact a lower surface of a semiconductor device and formed to exchange heat with the lower surface while predetermined flows flow in the heat sink.
The aforementioned single-side cooling method has a limit in cooling performance and, thus, a dual-side cooling method is created to overcome the limit of the single-side cooling method. The dual-side cooling method is configured by inserting devices into a heat exchanger and needs to satisfy a condition in which an interval of inserting the electric elements of the heat exchanger is greater than the height of the electric element and to simultaneously satisfy a condition in which a device and a heat exchanger are appropriately compressed to enhance heat transfer performance of the heat exchanger.
A heat exchanger of a dual-side cooling method shown in FIG. 1 may include tubes 20 positioned at opposite lateral surfaces of electric elements 10 to allow a heat exchange medium to flow therein and tanks 30 coupled to opposite ends of the tubes 20 to introduce or discharge the heat exchange medium.
In this case, the heat exchanger of the dual-side cooling method shown in FIG. 1 needs to be configured by fixing insertion spaces of the electric elements 10 via brazing and, then, inserting the electric elements 10 into the insertion spaces and, thus, it is difficult to insert the electric elements 10.
When an interval between the tubes 20 is increased to easily insert electric elements, the electric elements 10 and the tubes 20 are not appropriately adhered to each other and, thus, there is a problem in terms of degraded heat exchange efficiency.